Originally created as a three-seat, daylight escort fighter plane by the Nakajima Aeroplane Organization, Ltd., and flown in 1941, the IRVING was modified as a evening fighter in May of 1943 and shot down two American B-17 bombers to prove its capability. The Gekko (meaning moonlight) was redesigned to hold only two crewmen so that an upward firing gun could be mounted exactly where the observer after sat. Almost five hundred J1N1 aircraft, including prototypes, escort, reconnaissance, and night fighters were built in the course of Planet War II. A sizeable quantity were also employed as Kamikaze aircraft in the Pacific. The couple of that survived the war have been scrapped by the Allies.

This J1N1 is the final remaining in the planet. It was transported from Japan to the U.S. exactly where it was flight tested by the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1946. The Gekko then flew to storage at Park Ridge, IL, and was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. The restoration of this aircraft, completed in 1983, took far more than four years and 17,000 man-hours to achieve.

Boeing’s B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of Globe War II and the first bomber to residence its crew in pressurized compartments. Despite the fact that developed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a assortment of aerial weapons: standard bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.

On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon utilised in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on show at the U.S. Air Force Museum close to Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance climate reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Excellent Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on each missions.

The Grumman F6F Hellcat was initially conceived as an advanced version of the U.S. Navy’s then existing front-line fighter, the F4F Wildcat (see NASM collection). The Wildcat’s intended replacement, the Vought F4U Corsair (see NASM collection), first flown in 1940, was showing excellent promise, but development was slowed by problems, which includes the crash of the prototype.

The National Air and Space Museum’s F6F-three Hellcat, BuNo. 41834, was constructed at Grumman’s Bethpage, New York, factory in February 1944 beneath contract NOA-(S)846. It was delivered to the Navy on February 7, and arrived in San Diego, California, on the 18th. It was assigned to Fighter Squadron 15 (VF-15) on USS Hornet (CV12) bound for Hawaii. On arrival, it was assigned to VF-three exactly where it sustained damage in a wheels-up landing at NAS Barbers Point, Hawaii. Following repair, it was assigned to VF-83 exactly where it was used in a instruction part till February 21, 1945. Soon after several transfers 41834 was converted to an F6F-3K target drone with the installation of sophisticated radio-manage equipment. It was painted red with a pink tail that carried the quantity 14. Its mission was to be utilised in Operation Crossroads – the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. It flew on June 24, 1946, with a pilot, on a practice flight and was launched, unmanned, quickly right after the very first bomb test. Instrumentation on board and photographic plates taped to the control stick obtained data on radioactivity. Three far more manned flights preceded the final unmanned flight on July 25, 1946, which evaluated the very first underwater explosion. Records indicate that exposure of this aircraft to the radioactive cloud was minimal and residual radiation is negligible.

F6F-3K 41834 was transferred to NAS Norfolk and logged its final flight on March 25, 1947, with a total of 430.two flying hours. It was assigned to the National Air Museum on November three, 1948, and remained at Norfolk till October four, 1960, when it was moved by barge to Washington and placed in storage. In 1976 this Hellcat was loaned to the USS Yorktown Museum at Charleston, South Carolina. A superficial restoration was performed at the museum, but simply because of the harsh atmosphere and its poor situation the Hellcat was returned to NASM on March 16, 1982. In 1983, it was sent to Grumman Aerospace where a group of volunteers entirely restored the aircraft. In 1985, it was shipped back to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland, and place in storage. NASM’s F6F-three Hellcat is scheduled to be displayed in the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center at Dulles International Airport in Virginia in 2004.